The Phoenix and the Flower
by Tozz
Summary: Spoilers for T&T. NickxIris fluff stuff from their college days using the Alpha set from the 1sentence livejournal community. Complete.
1. 01 through 10

Err, so it's my second NickxIris fic, and second PW fic overall DX This pairing is too fun to write for :3

It takes place back in their college days again, because 1) young lovestruck!Feenie is too cute, and 2) I actually haven't played AJ yet, so I'd feel weird writing past T&T with no knowledge of what actually happens x_X;

This time I'm borrowing the 1sentence livejournal community challenge. The basic gist of the challenge is you have to write one sentence for each of the fifty prompts in one of the sets. I chose the Alpha set. I'll be posting 10 sentences at a time, so it'll eventually end up being five "chapters"...a fiveshot, I suppose?

Oh, and two more things: to make it interesting, I alternated the perspectives every other sentence--as in, the first sentence is in Iris's POV, the second is Feenie's, the third Iris's, etc. Also, it's not written chronologically...these are all just random scenes from my fluffy imagination. XD

Enjoy~ And reviews are very, very muchly appreciated~ :D

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#01 – Comfort  
She used to feel comforted by the fact that she was doing it all to help her sister, but the more time she spends with him the more uncomfortable she feels with her resolve.

#02 – Kiss  
They had their first kiss on their second date, and even though by now he's lost track of how many times they've gone out together, he still feels the same rush he felt back then every time their lips meet.

#03 – Soft  
His hair is surprisingly soft, she realizes one day, when she finally couldn't resist anymore and ran a hand through the spikes on the back of his head.

#04 – Pain  
It's amazing how all his problems seemed to lessen or even become nonexistent with her around, including his cuts and bruises; one day, he manages to bump his head and amass quite a swelling on his left temple, and yet seeing her fret over his injury makes him forget what had happened in the first place (though _that _could be the effects of head trauma-induced memory loss).

#05 – Potatoes  
She can't help but feel sorry for him when she sees the contents of his dorm fridge: sodas, burgers, and various cartons with questionable expiration dates, as well as a mysterious bag of potatoes; she figures that it could be considered charity to make him a home cooked meal, and the excitement in his face when she serves him the potatoes now mashed and piping hot makes it worth the effort.

#06 – Rain  
He loves it when it starts to rain unexpectedly when he's with her; then he gets to huddle with her beneath her parasol while they dash for cover.

#07 – Chocolate  
On Valentine's Day, he gives her a box of chocolates; she's so touched by his anxious earnestness that she forgets she's not the biggest fan of sweets and eats the whole box over the course of the next week.

#08 – Happiness  
He barely realizes it himself since he's so caught up in thoughts of her, but all his friends tell him his grins are goofier than ever.

#09 – Telephone  
Due to the fact that she'd never received a phone call before (Hazakura Temple had only a single public phone, after all) she got quite a shock the first time he called her--but she soon begins to enjoy hearing the reassuring ring of the phone, and feels happy knowing that she could dial it herself at any time to reach him, no matter how far apart they are.

#10 – Ears  
He never noticed all the little details of a girl's anatomy before they started dating, but now he's learned to fully appreciate all of the things he'd missed; for example, he likes the squeak she makes when he experiments with nibbling playfully on her earlobe.

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	2. 11 through 20

Alrighty! Here's the next batch of sentences :D For some reason, these seem to get more challenging the farther down the list I go. I hope I don't get repetitive with them. :x It's still fun for me though :)

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated! Got any favorite sentences yet? :P

Expect another update a week from now~

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#11 – Name  
She doesn't fully understand it herself, but it's begun to bother her every time he calls her "Dollie"; though she knows she's playing the part of the lovey-dovey girlfriend and actually thinks "Feenie" is a pretty cute nickname, sometimes she feels it would be nice to hear him call her Iris, just to hear what it would sound like.

#12 – Sensual_  
Does she even know what she's doing to me,_ he wonders silently to himself, after he asks her if she's cold and her uncharacteristically bold response is to slip her arms inside his coat, her face flaming; it's all he can do to stop himself from cupping those pink cheeks and kissing her right then.

#13 – Death  
She thinks about death sometimes—not necessarily in a suicidal way—and how now that she's gotten just a tiny taste of the world beyond spirit channeling and temples, she's realized that death is suddenly ten times worse once you've experienced more things.

#14 – Sex  
Like any college boy, he has the occasional passing thought about sex—specifically, sex with his uber cute girlfriend—but he gets the feeling that she's not ready yet, and that's okay; even if it has to wait a year or ten years or until they get married, he's just glad to have her by his side—though, of course, that doesn't stop him from_ thinking_ about it.

#15 – Touch  
She hates the way even the lightest of his caresses raises goose bumps across her arms, tattooing her unease so obviously on her skin, but since she can't seem to get her body to behave itself, she tries to avoid contact with him when she can without raising suspicion, even if it means repressing urges to touch him herself.

#16 – Weakness  
She is his favorite weakness, hands down; there's nothing better than seeing her after a long day of studying and feeling his heart turn to mush and his lungs collapse when she puts a hand to the side of his face and asks him in that sweet voice of hers how his day was.

#17 – Tears  
"You'd better get that damn necklace back soon, if you know what's good for—oh Christ, Iris, stop crying," her sister snaps, scowling angrily, but she can't help it; the tears came on their own, and she doesn't know why (or at least, doesn't _want_ to know).

#18 – Speed  
Some of his friends ask him if things are moving too quickly with her, but he doesn't see any problem with it since they're both so in love, after all—though sometimes even he thinks of how he fell for her so swiftly, and how it feels as though he's still falling at the same rate, and it's then when he hopes dearly that the landing won't be too hard.

#19 – Wind  
She likes that whenever they're outside walking together, he's tall enough to keep the gusts of wind from hitting her, though he probably doesn't do it on purpose or even notice.

#20 – Freedom  
He's always heard that he shouldn't be tied down to one girl when he's in college and instead enjoy the freedom of adulthood, but truthfully he couldn't care less if he's been "imprisoned," because if seeing his Dollie every day is what jail is like, he'd gladly take a life sentence.

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	3. 21 through 30

Thanks for all the reviews :3 Here's the next set~ I know I said this before, but these keep getting trickier and tricker XD; Hope you guys are still enjoying them ^___^ Reviews are always appreciated.

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#21 – Life  
She's never really thought about what she wanted to do with her future, beyond helping her sister, but she likes to pretend that she'll build a happy life for herself one day; if it's half as good as the temporary one she has with him, she knows she'll be pretty satisfied—though it's grown hard to separate "a happy life" from "being with Feenie."

#22 – Jealousy  
He's not the possessive type, but he'd be lying if he said it doesn't bother him that more than half the male population on campus is lusting after his sweet Dollie.

#23 – Hands  
His hands are much larger than her own, and it gives her a somewhat childish, happy satisfaction to feel the warmth of his fingers surrounding hers entirely whenever they hold hands.

#24 – Taste  
He's never satisfied with just kissing her once; not even the finest desserts in the world could compare to the sweetness of her lips, and he always finds himself going back for seconds.

#25 – Devotion  
Sometimes she feels sorry for him, watching him so blindly love a girl he think he knows, watching him declare that he would do anything for her, and watching him _do_ anything for her—but the pity for him is really to keep from pitying and even hating herself, because after all, she's doing the same thing for her sister.

#26 – Forever  
He ponders how there's so many different kinds of "forevers", like the man-this-paper-is-taking-_forever_-to-type kind of forever, and the man-I-could-talk-to-Dollie-on-the-phone-_forever_ kind of forever (the latter usually helping along the former, in that he had a tendency to want to talk to her instead of finish his homework).

#27 – Blood  
Though she's only in it for her sister, she finds herself worrying what would happen to him if the real Dahlia ever got fed up with waiting for the necklace; there are times that the worry overwhelms her so much that the red hair dye on her hands feels more like his blood.

#28 – Sickness  
She was the one who'd suggested he try Coldkiller X in the first place, and he now he can't imagine using anything else even if he wanted to; one day he ran out of the stuff and used a substitute brand he'd taken before, and yet this time it barely seemed to help with any of his symptoms.

#29 – Melody  
She remembers the time he gave her a mix CD and he kept repeating over and over how he "knew it was cheesy"; but despite the fact that she didn't recognize many of the songs, somehow she could hear him in it and thought it was some of the loveliest music she'd ever heard.

#30 – Star  
When they learned a shooting star was supposed to pass over Ivy University they made plans to go see it, but he ended up missing it; when she asked him why he said he'd blinked, but the truth was he'd had his eyes open the whole time—he just kept watching her instead of the sky.

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	4. 31 through 40

Next set is up, and only one more to go! I'm a little sad since this was such a fun and interesting challenge, but it'll be nice to have completed it ^___^

As always, reviews are appreciated :D Thanks to all my readers and my reviewers~ X3 Enjoy; final update is Tuesday.

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#31 – Home  
She's always considered the temple her home, and she probably always will, but she thinks that if it weren't for all the complications, it wouldn't be so bad to start over and get her own home—after all, then she could invite him over to her place any time she wanted.

#32 – Confusion  
The only time he ever feels any uncertainty is when she asks for the necklace back; it always shakes him a little, but it's easy to make excuses and explain it all away—though it never completely erases his confusion.

#33 – Fear  
One day, he's late for meeting her and won't pick up his phone and a panic chokes her—she is of course scared that her sister could have made her move, but it's laced with a silly, irrational fear that he might have forgotten her or maybe just didn't care enough to show up, but she still waits; less than five minutes later he arrives and explains that his phone was dead and a teacher had held him up after class to discuss one of his projects.

#34 – Lightning/Thunder  
He tries to pretend like thunder doesn't bother him when they're alone in his dorm room one stormy night, but when she whispers something in his ear and runs her hand over the prickly hair on the back of his head all he can hear is the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.

#35 – Bonds  
Surely she'll be torn in half one of these days by the two people most important to her—one is him and the other is her sister, and they're both pulling her in opposite directions, the binding so tight she can't move an inch.

#36 – Market  
He never even bothered to look at fruits and vegetables in the grocery store because he assumed they wouldn't fit into his starving college student budget, but one day she says she can't bear to watch him malnourish himself any longer and drags him to a store that sells the best food at the cheapest prices.

#37 – Technology  
She's discovered that he has an inability to work anything technological, and although she loves to gently tease him about it, she hasn't a clue about that stuff, either; the two of them spent hours one night trying to fix a paper jam when he'd attempted to print out a term paper due the next day.

#38 – Gift  
He used to think that the necklace was their one true symbol of their love, but now he's come to realize ever since that fateful day in the courthouse, she's given him so many more gifts than he ever could have imagined.

#39 – Smile  
His smile is one his most endearing traits; she can't help but smile back whenever he gives her one of his giant, unabashed grins, like he's totally unconscious of how giddy he looks.

#40 – Innocence  
Her purity is one of her most admirable traits; he knows his Dollie wouldn't ever hurt a fly and he loves her for that.

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	5. 41 through 50

Here it is, the final update. Sorry for the delay. School's been crazy, which is everyone's excuse lately. I finally got some free time to finish these last sentences. I'm kinda bummed it's over, but it feels good, too :) I hope everyone enjoyed reading these. I'm sure I'll do another one some day with a different pairing or fandom.

Thanks a bunch for reading and reviewing. It's greatly appreciated. :) Enjoy~

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#41 – Completion  
She knows the entire point of pretending to date him is to get back the necklace for Dahlia, but sometimes her heart inexplicably aches when she thinks about what'll happen when her task is completed and the façade comes to an end; on those days, she pretends to forget to ask him about it.

#42 – Clouds  
He feels like he can see her everywhere, even in the clouds, and he wonders if she feels the same way; she seems puzzled by the delighted peck on the cheek he gives her when they're out for a walk one day and she points out a particularly spiky cloud because she thinks it looks a lot like him.

#43 – Sky  
She hates cloudless days; the blank blue canvas seems so pure and overwhelming it could drown her, and maybe that's exactly why she loves those days, too.

#44 – Heaven_  
I'm in heaven_, he thinks to himself every time she hears her say "I love you"; even after months of dating her, he still can't believe he's got such a wonderful girl.

#45 – Hell_  
I'm in hell,_ she thinks to herself every time she hears him say "I love you"; it took only a few months of fooling him for her to realize that _she's_ the fool, because she's in love now, too.

#46 – Sun  
He'd never really got Shakespeare when he had to read it for school, but now Romeo's words seemed to ring true to him; his Juliet really _was_ the Sun, just as gentle and warm and generous.

#47 – Moon  
The moon always makes her feel lonely and guilty; it stares at her night after night through her window until it too is swallowed up in darkness.

#48 – Waves  
He can hardly believe that she's never been to the ocean and when he promises to take her there she mumbles puzzlingly, "If only we could, Feenie."

#49 – Hair  
She'd never considered herself to be a person particularly concerned with appearances, but after meeting him she starts to secretly hate the way her hair looks when she dyes it red—or maybe it's more that she hates that she has to change herself so much when she's around him she can't even keep her natural hair color.

#50 – Supernova  
"Like a supernova," she replies when he asks her to think of one word to describe their relationship; but though he agrees that it's definitely dazzling and bright, he knows they most certainly would outlast a quick and brief explosion.

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